Next Wave Automation debuts lift accessory for router table

Next Wave Automation debuted Ready2Lift at IWF 2014, a computer-controlled router table accessory to set the bit height with extreme accuracy. It complements the company’s Ready2Route electronic fence.

“This product allows woodworkers to adjust their bit height to 0.001 of an inch, which is its biggest feature. It enhances the Ready2Rout fence in that they can work independently or with each other,” product manager Ron Shapland says.

“The Ready2Lift assists when doing work such as a ramp-style cut, like a biscuit joint that starts out at one height and goes through the entire distance of a biscuit like an arch, which you can’t do manually. You’d have to have someone handling the router and raising it while someone is moving the wood.”

Used together, both products can produce box and dovetails joints, for example, by pressing a few buttons on the controller. The software can store up to 12 commonly used settings.

“The device can also do precise indexing, drilling holes at specified distances apart, like an upside down drill press. Something that would ordinarily require a jig system,” Shapland says.

The Ready2Lift is available with two plate options to fit most commercially available router tables. It sells for $399. The controller is an additional $229, though it’s included with the purchase of a Ready2Route for $599.